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To understand the present, it often helps to examine the past. In this spirit, President Jane Ann Slater, CDP, PhD., guided an audience of community partners and business leaders through a brief history of Our Lady of the Lake University Wednesday in Main Building as a prelude to her State of the Lake address.

In the early 1900s, the University served as a college that trained students to become teachers. At the urging of the local archbishop, OLL in 1942 started the first school of social work in Texas. As the city swelled with working adults who needed degrees, the University in 1978 started the area’s first Weekend College.

Thirty six years later, OLLU provides an array of much-in-demand undergraduate and graduate programs.

“We’re known nationally for our programs of excellence,” President Slater said. Among the examples: “Every year we review about 300 candidates for a master’s in Communications and Learning Disorders at the Jersig School but we can only take about 24.”

We called her “Aunt Lillums.” My mother’s oldest sister was a kind lady with a gentle smile and a birth name that was difficult to pronounce: Aurelia.

For reasons unknown, Aurelia’s younger sisters assigned her the nickname, “Lillums.” Her many nephews and nieces are forever grateful for our tongues would have been forever tied trying to master, “Aunt Aurelia.”

My late mother and late aunt were kindred spirits: passionate school teachers who became counselors. They cared deeply about children and higher education. On May 26, 1968, mom took me to see aunt Lillums graduate from Our Lady of the Lake University.

For years, I always wondered where that commencement was held. Municipal Auditorium? Freeman Coliseum? OLLU? The other day, I stumbled upon the answer at my dad’s house. There it was, inside an old scrapbook, a color photograph of me and my mother, posing at The Grotto, right next to Thiry Auditorium.

In post-Vietnam America, Wallis Sanborn III understood the nation’s mood for peace. He also knew his family’s history in battle.

One grandfather served in World War I, the other in World War II. His father spied on Korea as a Marine communications officer in Japan and South Korea.

At home, young Wallis held his father’s officer’s sword and swagger stick. He wore remnants of his father’s uniform: dress greens and dress blues, sundry patches and medallions. He read books filled with photos on Marine Corps history. He listened to stories — tales that took place in Iwakuni, Okinawa, South Korea and New Zealand.

After high school in Taylor — outside of Austin — the pull of genetics and Marine Corps paraphernalia proved irresistible. In 1984 at age 19, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines as a reservist.

The streets were cruel for young Gil Coronado. The streets were kind. Coronado grew up without a mother, who died when he was 5, and took out his anger on the world. “I was a juvenile delinquent,” he …

From Mexico to Miami. From immigrant to network news anchor. The unfolding story of Arantxa Loizaga gets better all the time.

Loizaga came to San Antonio several years ago to help her mother and two sisters open a restaurant. When the eatery folded, she became the host of a local TV magazine show for Telemundo.

Before long, she began reporting for KWEX-TV and enrolled at Our Lady of the Lake University. Loizaga was promoted to anchor and won two Lone Star Emmy Awards while maintaining a 3.75 GPA. Two months after graduating, she scored an exclusive interview with President Obama.

From The White House, the immigrant got the President to discuss immigration reform. How could she top that? Loizaga will move to South Florida and become co-anchor of Univision’s weekend newscast. She starts in September.

Aaron Flores is almost there. In one week, he tees off at the U.S. Amatuer Public Links Championship. Not long after that — probably in September — he will join the Adams Pro Tour, a springboard, he believes, to the PGA Tour.

Once he turns pro, he does not intend to blend in. He plans to stand out. “I don’t want to just compete at the pro level,” he says. “I want to win. I want to win multiple times. I know what it is to win at the college level. I know what it is to have success nationally.”

Jesse Blanchard drove to the basket. He stopped, spun around and lofted a shot that fell through the net.

It wasn’t exactly deja vu. But it was close enough. Eight years after forming the original club basketball team at Our Lady of the Lake University, Blanchard returned to Mabee Gymnasium Saturday with more than a dozen of his media friends, most of them in town to cover the NBA Finals.

I say “most” because Luke Bonner — brother of Spurs forward Matt Bonner — played in the unofficial media pick up game and he’s neither a reporter nor a broadcaster. He’s a 7-foot-0 European ballplayer-turned marketer with a nonprofit — The Rock On Foundation — and a charitable heart.

Bonner gave away 50 t-shirts — “I’m From TEXAS I Can Take The HEAT” — to fans and players who showed up. Then he sprinted down court and began draining 3-pointers.

Jerry Fuentes entertained lofty aspirations. He had an undergraduate degree and a management position with AT&T. He wanted to rise higher. And friends and colleagues told him he had strong leadership skills.

But to advance to an executive level, Fuentes needed a postgraduate degree. The challenge was to earn an MBA while managing responsibilities at the office and at home as a husband and father.

How could he do that?

The Weekend College program at Our Lady of the Lake University provided the answer. Armed with an MBA (1989) and extraordinary leadership skills, Fuentes rose through the company to become President of AT&T Arizona and New Mexico.

The professor behind the transformation of the science and math programs at Our Lady of the Lake University recalls the wonder of former students who visited Metz Hall during Alumni Weekend.

A $2.43 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education had resulted in a dramatic makeover. There were five new state-of-the-art labs in the biology department and four in the chemistry department. There was a computer lab for math and science students. There were study rooms with refrigerators, microwaves and blackboards.

And that did not include the technical and professional writing laboratory that’s being created for Fall 2014.

Jack Hank never saw the ball coming. He never saw the curve that spun his life around. In September 2005, Hank arrived at Our Lady of the Lake University as the dean of students. He oversaw the normal …